Sunday, March 30, 2014

Brazil is set to host the upcoming World Cup and the 2016 World Olympics. However in an attempt to prepare for these upcoming world events an initiative began in 2008 to clean up their Favelas. However a lot of the areas that have been pacified started to spout violence, once again housing firefights and murders of officers. These dug trafficking strong holds endanger the whole community. Most recently over a thousand police were backed by the military in an attempt to subdue the gang violence in Mare Favela which lies near Rio de Janeiro's international airport. All of these efforts have been in an attempt the make Brazil more travel friendly to outsiders so that they do not have to worry about their safety as much. This along with many other actions have been attempted to attract the international community to attend these upcoming world events hosted there.

I have mixed feelings about Brazil hosting these upcoming world events. In one hand it gives them an incentive to clean up the violent drug infested favelas but on the other hand they are bypassing the rights and safety of their own citizens. First off, they shouldn't be cleaning up the favelas as a way to make it safer for outside visitors, instead they should be cleaning them up as a way to make it safer for the citizens that live in and around there. Another reason why the rush to host these events undermines its citizens is because they are investing in infrastructure that is actually hurting their citizens. The government has unfairly "compensated" more than 200 citizens as a way to gain land for a new arena to hold the World Cup. On top of that to help pay for everything they have raised the price of public by 20 cents which in a highly inflated economy with a VERY large poverty gap, raises issues with a majority of its citizens. Over all I think that Brazil needs to get their priorities straight and take care of its own citizens before they worry about attracting people that don't even live there.